C. Peter Wagner
wrote a letter to Dr. Orrel Steinkamp on June 5, 2001 before Orrel wrote his
article called "Spiritual Warfare Evangelism - How Did We Get Here?" in The
Plumbline, volume 6, No. 5, November/December 2001. Here is the salient
quote from that article:

Today many people
being introduced to territorial spiritual warfare evangelism have no knowledge
of the genesis of these practices. Perhaps one of the most surprising
examples of this is found in a letter addressed to me, from the leading
proponent of territorial spiritual warfare, C. Peter Wagner. In response
to an article of mine that Wagner found on the net, he wrote me a personal
letter. The tone of the letter is very amiable and is a model of how we
all should interact with Christians with whom we disagree. However, the
startling revelation in the letter is that he admits to no knowledge,
whatsoever, regarding the Latter Rain and its teaching. He states: "So I
never even heard of the Latter Rain, Kingdom Now .. Manifested Sons of God or
any of those things...Now since I have become an advocate for contemporary
apostles and prophets, all of these things have been coming up, but I haven't
had any historical hook to hang them on. I've asked Bill Hamon and he
has tried to explain it to me, but I never really was able to make sense of it
until I read your article." Bishop Bill Hamon is clearly one of the few living
links with the Latter Rain. In his writings and especially his book,
"The Eternal Church," he clearly and accurately portrays the development of
the Latter Rain from its beginning, in the late forties, to its current
expression today. Reading Hamon's book would give anyone all the
information needed regarding this teaching.

However, in a
conference called "Global Harvest Ministries Presents: Apostolic Church Arising"
held at the Atlanta Metropolitan Cathedral, Atlanta, GA, June 14-16, 2001 C.
Peter Wagner claimed that he was drawn into the process and started hearing
about the Latter Rain back in 1993. Click on the following link to go to
an MP3 file where you can listen to this excerpt. You will need Winamp,
Windows Media Player or something similar to listen to it.

For those of you
who cannot access the MP3 file, here is a transcript of the above:

C. Peter Wagner:
Now, like I say, 50 years ago this process of coming to where we are now began
after WW2 but it sputtered. And now we hear terms like 'The Latter Rain
Movement" we hear terms like "The Restoration Movement" we hear terms like
"The Shepherding Movement" maybe you don't even know anything about those
terms because you've come into that later like me I mean I didn't know
anything about those movements. But those people in those movements,
now, Latter Rain, Shepherding, Restoration, all of that they were the pioneers
everybody and pioneers are very important to get us to where we are now but
one of the things that goes with the territory with pioneer is pioneers always
make mistakes. Did they make a lot of mistakes? Made a lot of
mistakes! See. And for example here in American we have our nation
America and America for many years depended on pioneers. So we had
pioneers going out west. Did they every make any mistakes? They
made a lot of mistakes. Killed too many buffalos, broke their promises
with the Indians, ruined land, dust bowls and things like that. But with
all those mistakes look what we got! I mean somebody had to go out there
and do it. See. Same with these movements at the end of WW2,
somebody had to do it. And the only thing is that so much criticism came
because of the mistakes that they made that for awhile the movement was kind
of crushed. Then it began resurging again, um, in the early
1990's. And so this is where we have uh been and where we're
going. Cause in the early 1990s God began speaking the same things and
by this time the dust had settled, you know, the pioneers had made their
mistakes and criticism had come and then God began speaking again. I
myself knew nothing about those previous efforts I mean I couldn't even spell
"latter rain". None of my professors in Fuller Seminary or Princeton
Seminary ever taught me about that, Congregational Churches didn't know
anything about all that stuff that was happening, and um, so I, but in 1993
then God drew me into the process and I began hearing about these things even
though I never experienced them now.

Please note some
items above. Latter Rain heresy is likened to pioneers making
"mistakes". Latter Rain heretics were only pioneers in the sense of
pioneering age old heresies in the 20th century. Heresy is not a mistake, it is a
sin, and one
we are to reject. Notice that Wagner claims God began speaking these
Latter Rain things again. Does God speak heresy? What was the reason
these things were not taught in the Congregational Church and other places,
though they had been taught at Fuller back in the 1970s on forward?
Because the Church generally recognized the tenets of the Latter Rain to be
heresy! The stark reality is that C. Peter Wagner knew about the Latter
Rain at least as long ago as 1989 when Paul Cain came out to visit John Wimber,
C. Peter Wagner's employee at Fuller.

Now I told you
that for a reason see, because, um, now were getting to 1989 and we have this
going, and all of a sudden John gets in touch with the Kansas City Prophets.
Now at that time Mike Bickle, who is one of our speakers here, why he was the
pastor of the Kansas City Prophets and Paul Cain was one of the prophets and
John Wimber didnít know a thing about them see, and so God figured John should
know, so Iím talking about prophets see, so Paul Cain calls up John Wimber on
the telephone and he says John the Lord has told me to visit you in
California. He never been, Paul Cain had never been there, so the Lord told me
to visit you in California and John said "Well wonderful yíknow" ... (C. Peter
Wagner, National School Of The Prophets - Mobilizing The Prophetic Office,
Colorado Springs, CO, May 11, Tape 1)

So we have four
forms of "spin" here. First he claims he knew nothing about the Latter
Rain until he read Dr. Orrel Steinkamp's article, and even then he is obviously
proud to be promoting it. Secondly we find him explaining the Latter Rain
rather articulately in 2001 to this conference audience. Thirdly, in this
explanation he claims he got drawn into the process back in 1993 when he began
hearing about these things. Fourthly, as I have already pointed out, one
of the two living proponents of the New Order Of The Latter Rain, namely Paul
Cain, associate to William Branham, visited John Wimber and C. Peter Wagner in
1989 according to Wagner on the DVD series, and he had to have explained the
apostolic movement to them at that time.

So when did Wagner
first know about the Latter Rain? Clearly it was not in 2001.